Xbox 360 Review: Fallout 3 – Broken Steel

Should you leave Broken Steel to rust?
The Pitt and Operation Anchorage have been great add-ons for Fallout 3. Sure, they have had their share of problems when it’s come to launch time, but now they all work fine and at the heart of that is prime quality DLC. Broken Steel takes things in a different direction and takes place after the campaign finale at Project Purity. How does that work? Well, let me tell you…but beware, there are spoilers ahead…
Essentially, regardless of whatever decision you choose at the end of the game, you will wake up two weeks later at the Citadel (with or without Sarah Lyons, depending on what you did) and certain dialogue is different if you inserted the FEV virus from President Eden. Broken Steel also raises the level cap to 30 and adds some new perks like becoming a nuclear device when your health is low, kind of like the first season of Heroes.

Broken Steel did have its fair share of problems, and as of writing…there still appears to be some for the PC gamers in terms of achievements not syncing properly. Xbox 360 owners had this problem but it seems to have been fixed as long as they recover their account. I’m not surprised that the DLC had a few issues; it wouldn’t be Fallout 3 DLC if it worked when it was released! Ok, maybe that’s a bit pessimistic but true so far. From what I hear, Broken Steel is the last DLC for Fallout 3. There are rumours of more coming, but so far nothing has been confirmed.

The DLC essentially puts you against the remainder of the Enclave forces. Liberty Prime begins the first assault with you and then…well you’ll have to see. After that, you essentially are given 2 more missions in which you find an item and the last one is destroying the Enclave base with an airstrike. The great thing is that you can pick your own target; I personally chose to destroy the Citadel then hopped in a Vertabird and waited for the reaction. It was priceless; damn do I love to be evil in this game!
There are some other side-quests such as providing water supplies to Megaton and Rivet City, but they don’t offer any achievements but will help with boosting your way to Level 30. Personally, I wish the level cap happened at Operation Anchorage so those who had completed every achievement wouldn’t feel so stuck to reach the Level 30 milestone. PC owners can of course cheat for this, but 360 owners will have to work that extra bit harder to earn them.

Broken Steel also introduces a few new weapons; my personal favourite is the Tesla Cannon which is essentially the same laser that Liberty Prime uses. It’s deadly; it can destroy a Vertabird with one shot! A line from Red vs. Blue has some relevance here… “I bet I could blow up the whole goddamn world with this thing” and you would probably be right. I only wish I had the weapon much earlier so the rest of the game would be a breeze. Well I know what to do if I ever decide to go through the 360 version on my other gamertag…

The story of Broken Steel is generally good and well worth following, even if it doesn’t give a clear ending of what happened to your character like it meant to when the game originally ended. The good thing is that the DLC is replayable with different endings because of the targeting system and like I said there are different bits of dialogue depending on what you did at Project Purity. It’s all good.

Framerate is fairly steady as usual and the new areas are quite good. Broken Steel is without a doubt, the best of the 3 DLC packages from Bethesda. It’s presented well and generally feels like a better piece of content.

The Verdict

Broken Steel maybe short-lived, but it does offer replay value if you save before certain decisions. Overall it’s damn impressive and makes me hope that this isn’t the end for Fallout 3 DLC.